The Bow of Apollo
by Slutinski
Summary: A new prophecy has been announced. The Bow of Apollo has been stolen & is now growing weaker by the minute. The gods of Olympus are furious, concerned, and worried about the outcome that this might have in their world. Apollo must issue five male champions of his choosing on a life-threatening quest for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to retrieve the Bow before it's too late. [AU]


**The Bow of Apollo**

**Full Summary:** A new prophecy has been announced. The Bow of Apollo has been stolen and is now growing weaker by the minute. The gods of Olympus are furious, concerned, and worried about the outcome that this might have in their world. Apollo must issue five male champions of his choosing on a life-threatening quest for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to retrieve the Bow from a long defeat Titan that has risen from the Earth for vengeance against the Gods. [AU, Set 2 years after the Great Prophecy.]

**Author's Note: **Gods, this planning took me a while to get out of my head. I've had this idea balled up inside of my mind but I just didn't know how to put it together until now. The reason why he requires five **male** champions is because since his twin sister only has Hunters that are girls, Apollo must have champions of his own that are boys. Some of the gods think that it reflects their sibling relationship with each other.

I also wanted to incorporate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon inside of this story because I loved the idea of a gigantic beautiful garden in the ancient areas of Europe. I hope you guys like this story and I'm gonna try and make this first chapter worthwhile.

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**Chapter I**: A Prophecy of Champions

**PERCY JACKSON**

The warm summer sunrays gleam down against the trees and the lake that Camp Half-Blood overlooks. It is a beautiful day for camp activities like lava wall climbing, Pegasus flying, and even arts and crafts with the Hephaestus kids. The camp has regenerated a new aura that seems to make the area even stronger, more unbreakable since Gaea's War against the Olympians.

From the center of the main grounds that is circulated by the Cabins, I stand and watch every demigod run by me as they gather their things and supplies to get to their next camp activity. Apparently, I am given the day off by Chiron from winning another chariot race against Camp Jupiter last week. Camp Jupiter, I think to myself with a warm feeling inside of me. Ever since the War ended, the two camps have gotten so close to each other than we are all sure that there wouldn't be any rivalry between the Greeks and Romans ever again, well besides the annual Olympics being held in New Rome by Camp Jupiter.

Camp Jupiter became another home to me, a completely new opportunity to see myself settling down in New Rome for the rest of my half-mortal life. I remember the day I first came to Camp Jupiter. I was so dumbfounded about losing my memory, not even having a clue that the camp was the opposing force against Camp Half-Blood, until recent events that led us to work together to defeat Gaea's army and plunge her back into the Earth where she belongs.

The two Camps have forgotten about their rivalry and are now in peace with each other.

I sigh with happiness. It is now two years after the War, and things are back to the way they are suppose to be, with a few extra notable things to add to the success of the Greeks and Romans. I see Annabeth on the battlefield, her blonde hair whipping across her face as she dodges, elbows, swipes, nearly impales, and most of all, points her sword at her last standing victim of the day. That move reminds me of the first days I came to this camp. We were kids back then, it seems such a long time now. Annabeth makes eye contact with me and shoots me a wheezing grin, breathing heavily as sweat beads her eyebrow while her last victim relinquishes his standing position.

A give her a nod and a soft smile before I'm nudged by Grover, his goat fur and all its glory with his two fully grown horns on the top of his head. "Man, you should just marry her."

"Marry her? Are you kidding? I don't even plan on marrying till I'm like forty!" I reply with an amused tone. Grover laughs and shakes his head.

"Well, don't make her wait too long."

"She agrees to wait as well, so we're cool, for now at least. It will only be a matter of time before she whips out the wedding dress magazines and start scanning the phonebooks for the best floral and wedding planner—"

"Alright, dude I get it. Annabeth taking care of wedding: bad; marrying when you're old and wrinkly: good."

I laugh and grin as I push Grover before grabbing him with an arm wrapped around his shoulder as we walk towards my Cabin to go for a swim.

Seriously, this is a great day to go swimming. How can you not enjoy this beautiful sun? Apollo must be pretty generous with the Sun's power today, because it's gleaming like crazy. It's like the Sun was a huge light bulb in the sky that was getting brighter and brighter by the minute. This usually happens to us in the summer, and the mortals tend to blame it for global warming. If only they knew.

I let go of Grover, bidding him a farewell before heading into the Cabin whilst taking off my orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, hanging it on the trident rack next to my trident that leans against a corner of the walls. I change into swimming trunks, just to feel in the zone for swimming because let's face it. Most of the times I go underwater, my power makes me water resistant so it lets me come out to the shore dry, like not even a single water droplet has been poured upon me. But today, I try to focus myself on being wet (not the dirty kind, shut up), being one with the ocean and having a blast swimming underneath the lake.

I run across the dock and the next thing I knew, I am doing a cannonball into the Long Island Sound, the water retracting itself back to the focal point of the impact of which I made, splashing a tall geyser of water more than fifty feet tall. I think I might have been too excited for swimming because it scared off some of the naiads, more particularly the lake nymphs, Limnatides. They scatter away from me as I surface from under the lake, spitting out a fountain of water as if I was a stone marble statue fountain. Some campers come to see what is happening, only to find me swimming in the lake with scared naiads and making fifty foot tall geysers that might've been a sight but turns out to be a worrying sight.

I reassure everyone that everything is alright, and they proceed back to their camp activities. Grover is at the end of the dock, shaking his head at me as he crosses his arms while I climb out of the lake, sitting on the dock while I dry myself instantaneously. This ability still amazes me to this day.

"Control, Perce. Learn to control it," Grover reminds me.

"I know how to handle it. I just wanted that to happen. Got too excited, y'know."

He nods his head and stands up, extending a hand to help me off the wet dock as we are being welcomed by a slowly darkening sky.

Our attention is now focusing on the sky. The sun was fading away as if it is slowly disintegrating, but I don't think that it can actually do that unless some sort f supernova were to happen. Besides, Apollo wouldn't do that to one of his sole symbols of who he is. But the sky is now worrying me. From behind Grover and I, yells and cries for help are being heard across the camp grounds as we turn out attention to a smoky river of green mist that comes from the Blue Mansion. Grover and I speed to the mansion in a hurry.

Chiron gestures for us to come inside along with Annabeth, Piper, Leo, Nico, and the other cabin leaders to see what is going on. The main situation is Rachel; she is standing there like Medusa had turned her into stone, unable to move as green mist pours out of her agape mouth with her eyes glowing white. The cabin leaders are questioning each other about what's going on, and I give Chiron a look. He looks back at me with concern and worry as if he knows something we don't. And that usually does not sound jolly. Rachel, or what I now suspect to be the Oracle of Delphi to be speaking, takes in a deep wheezing breath that sounds like two people, both a high and low toned voices, inhaling together simultaneously, which adds to the eeriness of the situation, giving my goose-bumps along my arms and neck. And the unexpected happens.

_The Son of Zeus shall be vulnerable and weak.  
The Bow of Apollo, five champions must seek.  
Darkness will fall at the Maiden's command  
And Phaeton's revenge will set fire to the land._

The green mist disappears into oblivion, and Rachel almost faints to the wooden floorboards before Connor and Travis Stoll catch her from behind, setting her down on a chair nearby. The rooms falls silent, and believe me, this adds more to the suspense of not wondering what in the name of the gods just happened.

We are all looking at Chiron, desperately waiting for something, anything to come out of that centaur's wise mouth. But he looks like he is struggling to put the words together. This is not like him. A loud bolt of lightning is heard outside on the camp grounds and not Zeus, but Jupiter barges in without permission, his face full of concern, worry, dread, and fear.

"Get to Olympus. Now," he tells Chiron. "All of you."

"Yes, My Lord." Chiron humbly bows in Jupiter's presence for a moment before the king of the gods leaves the room, bolting back up into the skies. There are two things that have just happened in ten minutes that just ruined my whole summer. One, we are being issued a new prophecy that sounds difficult to decipher; and two, Zeus is in his Roman form, and when in Roman form, there is definitely times of war, death, and bloodshed ahead of us, and I am completely unprepared for the worst.

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**Author's Note:** I am cutting this hear because I'm going to focus on getting the more major details in the next chapter. Hope you guys liked this! I'm hoping to make this a series so please send me your reviews and feedback!

**Next Time on "The Bow of Apollo"**: The Oracle has issued a new prophecy and the campers are worried and scared out of their minds. Jupiter issues for Chiron to get the camp leaders up to Olympus. Matters are getting worse by the moment as the sky is now darkened and transformed into night, and who is Phaeton? Find out next time on The Bow of Apollo!


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